This is the third year I’ve grown potatoes.  Yukon Gold, Fingerlings and Carolina Golds.  First year I grew them in bags.  Last year, I built a potato tower out of some stakes and leftover chicken wire.  It’s been pretty successful.

Today I harvested potatoes.  I took off the layer of straw and dried ornamental grass trimmings and put them aside.  Then I took a hand rake and raked out the little nuggets of goodness.  You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted cooked fresh homegrown potatoes.  Scrub them clean, put them in a covered Pyrex dish and microwave on high until soft.  No salt or butter, they are so delicious and melt in your mouth.  They are so dense and oh the energy in them!  They are alive.  Best thing for our bodies right now are foods that have energy.

So, I was working away, engrossed in the wonder of digging out treasure, and the thought popped into my head that I should be taking pictures and sharing this.  Of course, I have no before pictures of the potato tower intact with the vines.  but I do have , but the time to harvest potatoes is when the vines begin to die back in the fall.  We had regular rain this summer, not too dry, not too wet, so they did well.  Potatoes like consistently moist soil.  Not too wet but moist.  

The soil doesn’t stick to them much so not to worry, they are hard to miss. When you think you’ve gotten them all, do another step and look a little further, there’s always a few little strays.  So I’ll take my shovel and turn the ground over fairly deep- about 6-8 inches.  I add back the straw and grasses so they can break down in the soil and become food for next year’s crop.  A few shovelfuls of worm compost and the potato tower is put to bed for the winter.

This is an excellent garden activity for children.  The teeny little spuds are so cute and fun.  A great way to spark wonder in the fertile minds of little helpers.

I still grew potatoes in bags this year.  They were under our deck to keep from overheating.  But the potato tower did better for the second year in a row.  If you have never experienced a fresh cooked home grown potato you need this in your life.  If you don’t have a garden, try a bag like a Geopot.  But, you don’t need to spend money on a fancy bag.  Believe it or not, you can use a large fabric reusable grocery bag or even buckets.

Here’s a short video about building a potato tower.